I really don't know what to say to you. Clearly we are on different sides, but for the life of me I can't get where you are coming from.

I going to delve into pure opinion for this post only.

You have been given a plethora of good advice and been consistently directed to decent sources of information. Yet none of it seems to move you. Nor can you simply seem to let it lie, but you keep coming back with more and more discredited information.

What drives you man?

Do you really think thr the good folks here on CF are in come kind of weird conspiracy, out to get you? Are we all really that dumb?

I can understand having a contrary point of view, I also understand the futility of trying to ram it down the collective throat. Why do you persist?

Those concerned with warming see a danger to our future. What danger do you see? Do you really think that being concerned with GW threatens humanity? Or does it just in convince you?

I just don't get where you are coming from. It strikes me as a very weird obsession.

Not so much an obsession. More an intellectual diversion, which I presume is why you have posted so much on this topic.

My main interest in this particular topic relates to the consequences of misguided environmental policy on people's lives, as well as curiosity around how people largely ignorant of the science they refer to defend their positions. As part of the jihad against oil, the US now diverts a massive amount of food crops to ethanol production. The result is higher worldwide food costs, and greater suffering and hunger in the third world. You can pat yourself on the back when you refill your car with 10% ethanol, but quite literally some children are going hungry so you can feel good about yourself. Environmentalists may feel righteous about eliminating chlorinated hydrocarbons, but millions of poor people are dead from malaria as a result. I could go on, but you get the point.

AGW promoters have failed to make a decent scientific case for their position, which is why there is so much resistance to turning our economy upside down fighting one minor greenhouse gas that mankind contributes a trivial amount to. If I'm a mystery to you because I find the scientific question unsettled and am therefore unlikely to support taxing ourselves into poverty just for drill, then I would not be the only thing in life you find mysterious.

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__________________http://delfin.talkspot.com
When stupidity is a sufficient explanation, there is no need to appeal to another cause.
- Ulmann's Razor

No, not according to big tobacco, they still say it's not settled.
Do you see the similarity to big oil here?

I never got around to asking them whilst I was drilling their oil and gas wells but knowing how they generally view things I would hazard the opinion that they would be pretty much pro AGW. They know that we will be very reluctant to give up our automobiles and air travel and that their oil can only get more expensive thereby increasing the value of that they already hold and as the biggest holders of natural gas resources, which is in greater demand because burning it produces less CO2 than burning coal, this source (natural gas) of their revenue can only thrive in the future.

It's not beyond the bounds of either probability or possibility that they are the promoters of the whole AGW movement?

I suggest that we move on with this thread. There is far too much here that the majority agree on to allow ourselves to be derailed by deniers.

Think of it this way.....much good comment has been made on both sides about humanities ability to control themselves and mould our future. Let us bend together here to keep the topic more to that which we know to be factual thus demonstrating our ability to effect change.

The problem with using the term "denier" rather than say "skeptic" or "agnostic" is that you immediately brand yourself as an AGW zealot and no later appeal to reason or rationality will have any effect whatsoever on your protagonists.

The problem with using the term "denier" rather than say "skeptic" or "agnostic" is that you immediately brand yourself as an AGW zealot and no later appeal to reason or rationality will have any effect whatsoever on your protagonists.

It has been a lot of fun anyway.

Best point made yet in this thread!

__________________Any fool with a big enough checkbook can BUY a boat; it takes a SPECIAL type of fool to build his own! -Capngeo

The problem with using the term "denier" rather than say "skeptic" or "agnostic" is that you immediately brand yourself as an AGW zealot and no later appeal to reason or rationality will have any effect whatsoever on your protagonists.

It has been a lot of fun anyway.

A denier refuses to beleive something is going in front of their eyes ( so to speak )

A skeptic has a reasoned belief that while most or a reasonable part of what they hearing is right, they reserve a concern

An agnostic actually believes nothing either way. Hence few deniers can be agnostic.

For example, there are several branches of what might happen as a result of AGW that I don't beleive are correct. Hence I'm skepical about certain things , while fully accepting the basic science behind AGW.

Denial is an appropriate term smokers are often I. The same camp as those opposing AGW

People may have concerns about certain aspects of AGW , being skepical is fine , denying it completely is quite frankly , burying your head in the ground

The other aspect is that those opposing AGW are not doing so from an agnostic aspect. They have an agenda to pedal , usually some form of Ayn Rand philosophy , most prevalent in the US

Dave

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"... The natural cycle is range bound and well understood, largely constrained by the Milankovitch cycles. Since the beginning of the industrial age, humankind has caused such a dramatic departure from the natural cycle, that it is hard to imagine anyone thinking that we are still in the natural cycle...
... Simply put, based on the evidence, mankind has forced the Earth climate system to depart from it's natural cycle forcing.”

In this crazy global debate, spare a thought for us centre-lefties who are skeptics. I was happy to be counted in that camp till, in recent years, the tea-party type right has jumped on the bandwagon for their own purposes. Now I just keep my head down or face being thus associated.

Still, on the bright side, I know a few centre-righties who have the problem of being AGW believers but also lie low in fear of being thought of as dripping wet.

But whatever, don't be fooled that "the science is settled", which is inherently unscientific, or that scientists will ever speak in unison on any difficult issue. Surgeons don't, which is why different opinions are sought. Historians don't, nor engineers and so on. So unless they've dropped in from a parallel universe, I've lived long enough to know that they'll behave like, er, humans.

And also, don't ever believe that the question of AGW will be decided by folk in white lab coats. It will be decided, as are all the big questions, around the cabinet table (or the governing executive in other systems). Cos the fact is that if you've got the numbers then you control the agenda - and the funding.